Microsoft Word marketing doc

6.1 IMPORTANCE 
 
Marketing 
information 
benefits 
a firm in a variety of ways. 
1.
Marketing information helps marketing planning by making 
available reliable information on the external environment and the 
internal realities of the company. 
2.
It helps early spotting of changing trends, it provides market 
intelligence to the firm. 
3.
It facilitates the development of action programmes for achieving 
goals. 
4.
It helps effective tapping of marketing opportunities and provides 
effective defence against emerging marketing threats. 
5.
It helps the firm adjust its products and service to the needs and 
tastes of customers. 
6.
It helps the firm control its marketing activities. 
7.
The quality of marketing decisions are decided to a great extent 
by the quality of marketing information available to the decision 
maker, 
8.
It helps the firm in geographic expansion of markets. 
9.
Emergence of selective buyers due to increase in income. 

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10.
Changing of competitive conditions. The movement from price to 
non-price competition with increased use of product 
differentiation, advertising and promotions. 
11.
It helps for the fast growing consumerism. 
12.
It studies in science and technology. 
6.2
METHODS OF COLLECTING MARKET INFORMATION: 
The methods of collecting market information is of two ways : 
1.
Classification based on the end use of information. 
2.
Classification based on the subject of matter of the information. 
1.
CLASSIFICATION BASED ON END USE 
In this method, marketing information can be classified into four groups. 
i)
Information for marketing planning 
ii)
Information for marketing operation. 
iii)
Information for key decisions in marketing. 
iv)
Information for marketing control 
2.
CLASSIFICATION BASED ON SUBJECT MATTER. 
i)
Product 
ii)
Consumer 
iii)
Pricing 
iv)
Distribution Channels. 
v)
Promotion 
vi)
Sales force 
vii)
Competition 
viii)
Sales methods 
ix)
Internal operation of the firm 
x)
External environment of the firm. 
Every organisation requires a continuos flow of information for taking 
various marketing decisions, the information needs of large organisations are far 
greater large for two reasons. 
1)
The size and complexity of organisations necessitate voluminous 
information to be gathered and processed before vital marketing 
decisions can be taken. 
2)
In large organisations, the marketing decision makers are located 
away from the field of activity. 

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There is a need for system in handling marketing information. 
A System is nothing but an integral procedure in which inputs are 
received processed and stored and the outputs are transmitted for absorption in 
the main stream. A System framework alone can provide a set of procedures 
and methods for regular, planned, purposeful and systematic gathering, analysis, 
storage and retrieval of data. Since a large assortment of data is required for 
managing the marketing job, a system frame work is essential for handling the 
complex, diverse and voluminous data. The system can take care of all the 
activities required for this purpose and unify them in to a single procedure. 
A System device is essential for processing the raw data into meaningful 
marketing information. 
It facilitates repetitive use of the same information by different 
departments at different times and for different purposes. 
Much of marketing information relates to environment, customers and 
competition and therefore cannot be anticipated. The job becomes some what 
easier, if it is organised in to a system. A system smoothens the job. It indicates 
patterns from out of available information. It also makes it integrative and 
decision oriented.